Four key transit lines serve as focal points for metro area transit

The Met Council recently color-coded transit lines — some built, some under construction — it looks to help double transit ridership to 140 million by 2030.

Bar graph squiggles show ridership on pace to reach the goal.

Helping to pull the weight are four transit lines, officially designated by colors.

Met Transit officials point to the I-35W/46th Street BRT station in Minneapolis as a model of what BRT offers commuters — a sense of refinement. The station was built on a median on hyper-busy I-35W to help improve running times.

The veteran Hiawatha light rail line, a 12-mile section in Minneapolis to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, is the Blue Line.

The Green Line, existing in part on paper, are the Central/Southwest light rail lines, a proposed 26-mile shot through heavily travelled corridors that within six years will allow Eden Prairie commuters to take their seats and ride uninterrupted to the State Capitol and downtown St. Paul, if they choose.

Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton spoke of construction noises penetrating the Governor’s Office from the Central Corridor construction on University Avenue outside the State Capitol.

“Yesterday, they were beeping the whole day — they backed up the whole day,” Dayton recently quipped of the earthmovers.

The two other lines, Red and Orange, color-code the Cedar Avenue and I-35W bus rapid transit lines (BRT), respectively. These lines offer the flexibility and electronic gadgetry of light rail service, while employing the workhorse of the transit system, buses.

Work on the Central Corridor light rail line has been going on over the summer near the State Capitol, with University Avenue being torn up and refitted with the light rail line and stations.

The Northstar Commuter Rail Line funnels commuters from the northern suburbs to the downtown Minneapolis transportation hub near Target Field.

Beyond the corridors, transit lines vary.

For instance, Central Corridor Light Rail Line, a $957 million project, boasting 18 new stations and planned peak hour stops of every 10 minutes, unlike Hiawatha is being built down the middle of the road.

“That’s one big difference,” said Laura Baenen, a Met Council project spokeswoman.

Construction is still in earth-churning stages, but by next year, the Central Corridor is expected to be finished to the extent test runs will take place.

Indeed, the final construction stages, the placement of overhead wires, will be “a cleaner, tidier kind of work,” said Baenen.

Central Corridor is expected to open in 2014, with Southwest light rail beginning to load commuters four years later.

As with other transit projects, the decision to go with light rail versus buses reflects population densities, projected ridership levels, the desire of local government, Baenen explained.

And cost.

One factor influencing decisions regarding Cedar Avenue BRT was that the bridge over the Minnesota River is not designed to accommodate light rail and to rebuild it would have been painfully expensive, a Met Council official explained.

Light rail is currently being studied in other transit corridors.

Hennepin County is examining its use in the Bottineau Transitway, a proposed 13-mile route through Minneapolis and northwest suburban cities of Golden Valley, Robbinsdale, Crystal, New Hope, Brooklyn Park, Maple Grove and Osseo.

The county put the cost of developing light rail at $900 million; cost of developing BRT at $500 million.

Met Council officials view the proposed transitway at this point the business of Hennepin County.

Developing transit is not without negative impacts and controversy.

Dayton, for one, views the narrowing of roadway along Central Corridor the work of transit ideologues flexing their muscle.

“So they build the case for public transit — I think that’s unfortunate,” Dayton said.

But Baenen pointed out that University Avenue, the longest stretch on the corridor, will retain double-lane traffic each way because studies show it would cause too much congestion to do otherwise.

On other short stretches, such as the Washington Avenue Bridge where traffic is reduced to single lane each way, studies show congestion will not result, she explained.

Some 1,400 businesses are located along Central Corridor and Met Council officials have been mindful of the impact line construction has on them, Baenen explained.

In addition to providing up-to-date construction information, some financial resources have been made available.